Plex increasing Lifetime Plex Pass cost to whopping $750
https://9to5mac.com/2026/05/19/plex-increasing-lifetime-plex-pass-cost-to-whopping-750/Open linkView original on lemmy.world592
Comments275https://9to5mac.com/2026/05/19/plex-increasing-lifetime-plex-pass-cost-to-whopping-750/Open linkView original on lemmy.world
my lifetime pass for jellyfin cost me $0, pretty good value
I didn't get into self-hosting until recently, and people recommended Jellyfin, so I don't even know what I'm missing with Plex, if anything. It feels like Jellyfin does everything I need.
You’re missing getting to pay for it. Imagine how good it would feel to see $750 less in your bank account.
I mean Plex definitely has a value add. Around here people will scoff but Plex is far easier to work with for non technical users.
If you shared your library externally Plex was definitely easier it's just that they have started to extract value from that which does suck.
Plexamp is GREAT; I’ve not found another app like it that works with a home hosted music streaming server.
If you want to go all the way down the rabbit hole look into unraid and the galaxy of self hosted media clients
Easier sure, but it comes at the expense of all traffic (even streaming to a device on your local network) going through their servers. If you have an internet outage or their servers go down, you can't even stream media locally with Plex. No such issues with Jellyfin.
Edit: apparently my frustrations about this were based on something I set up incorrectly, so +1 point for Plex working locally without internet, -1 point for ease of use/setup if I had this wrong for years without knowing it or finding the fix on my own.
You can totally stream locally without internet, I've done it several times. I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that Plex doesn't do direct streams, especially locally?
I got that idea from the times when I couldn't stream to my TV in my home while my internet was down. Switched from Plex several years ago though
I like shitting on Plex but you absolutely can stream entirely locally without internet.
There is a server side setting you need to switch off. If I remember correctly it deals with the way you sign into plex.
I won't doubt that. I've just had Plex for at least 6 years and never had the complete inability to stream directly when the internet is down. It has always fallen back to local streams in my experience (when I had Comcast, this was a frequent occurance and would have otherwise resulted in me returning to emby).
This is incorrect, bordering on outright FUD. Plex only uses their servers for the initial server discovery. When you sign into Plex, your device basically contacts the central plex discovery server and goes “hey, which servers do I have access to? And where are they located?” Plex’s server then passes that info back to the device, so the device can reach those servers directly. No actual content hits Plex’s servers by default. Hell, Plex wouldn’t want content hitting their servers by default, because it’s a truly astronomical amount of bandwidth that would be required on their end, for no real benefit.
You can technically use their relay option to bounce the video stream off of their server, but they specifically say that it’s a last-ditch workaround for troubleshooting. Because their relay server is intentionally bandwidth-capped and will throttle your video quality. So the relay is only really meant to be used for troubleshooting and edge cases.
“Aha! But you need to contact their server to get access even on LAN! So it will stop working when your internet goes out!” You can just configure the device to use a direct connection instead. This will allow you to connect directly to a server on your LAN. No need for their handshake server.
Thank you, it needed to be said.
You're not alone. The first time I lost access to my locally-stored content when my internet went out, I searched for a solution. There is, one, but it's not obvious--or at least wasn't back when I encountered this problem. I don't know why it would be the default setup, I can't think of a good reason, only nefarious ones. It's one of the reasons I dumped Plex, in spite of having a life-time pass I paid $75 for, I stopped trusting them.
I tried to use it about 3 years ago on an apple tv. It tried finding the server on my LAN and never could do it reliably, so I found it more annoying.
With Jellyfin/Swiftfin I do have to punch in the hostname or IP, but it works fine for me and the people in the house. The only annoyance is getting signed out every few months, but I'm not sure of that's a server or client issue on Apple TV and happens infrequently enough that I have not bothered to look up the reason.
Edit: should have said that I used to use Plex before ~2012-2018, and with more ease that after the updates that dumbed down the interface. Maybe its changed and better now, but no reason for me to care.
You got the arr stack up too? Feels like magic when it's all setup
No, not yet. I took forever to manually rip what I have, which was a lot, and I'm still working my way through boxes of music (which I'm also hosting on Jellyfin). I'll figure out that step next.
Trash-guides will be your savior
Wow, this is so much good info. Thank you
If you haven’t already, you may want to look into FileBot. It’s the only reason I was ever able to properly rip and rename all of my files so Plex/Jellyfin can automatically detect them.
Oh my god, you mean I didn't have to do all this manually? I've spent so much troubleshooting time fixing file names.
Nope.
Ah fair, just take your time and feel free to ask
It does feel magical :D
You’re missing the early days when plex lifetime pass was ~$50usd and jellyfin wasn't a thing (that I know of). I believe Kodi was the only real competitor at the time, and it was much less friendly.
Plex has slowly moved in a less user friendly direction, but still meets my needs and I’ve easily gotten over $750 in value from the…almost 20 years, wow…I’ve been using it.
I felt the same way with my Kodi installs, I had a pi in every room that used a shared library db so I could pause in one room and resume somewhere else, nfs shares for media, a config file and done.
I bought a lifetime Plex pass a decade or so ago and shifted everything except my music to Jellyfin about a year ago. Now I'm looking into dispatcharr to round everything out.
Dispatcharr is pretty neat for m3u streams.
Working great with jellyfin
Nice! I'm giving it a go with some dumb free m3u's now and so far it's been pretty great. I haven't tied it into Jellyfin or Plex yet but one I decide on a decent iptv provider it'll be happening.
Had some issues with streams not loading in Jellyfin.
I needed to set up a user-agent and streaming-profile like this:
User-Agent:
Lavf/61.9.107Streaming profile:
-> command:
ffmpeg-> parameters:
-http_persistent 0 -extension_picky 0 -i {streamUrl} -c:v copy -c:a copy -fflags +genpts+discardcorrupt -b:v 4M -maxrate 4M -bufsize 8M -f mpegts pipe:1This is (still depending on your m3u source) to avoid most of the transcoding or double transcoding of the streams :)
The dispatcharr page is mostly self-explanatory but had some issues with the m3u and epg.
Make sure to properly align your streams with the epg guide you are pulling.
Do all (M3U and EPG XMLTV) through dispatcharr
Provide these to Jellyfin:
M3U:
http://dispatcharr:9191/output/m3u/ActiveChannelsXML EPG:
http://dispatcharr:9191/output/epg/ActiveChannels?tvg_id_source=tvg_id(Notice: I am using docker. I also set up a group for channels so I can de-/activate channels however I please without deleting and recreating them constantly.)
Jellyfin is amazing for a lot of things, but it shouldn’t be available externally. There are a few critical security concerns that devs have openly stated will never be patched. And that makes it a non-starter for sharing with people who can’t figure out how to use a personal VPN connection. It may be fine for me and my household… But there’s no way I’m going to be able to walk my tech-illiterate grandmother through it over the phone.
In contrast, Plex makes sharing server access very easy. Since they run a centralized server to handle all of the “which servers do I have access to, and where are they located” automatic discovery traffic, sharing content is as simple as sending an invite link. That centralization flies in the face of what Jennyfin stands for, so they won’t ever implement it. I even have a burner Plex account that already has access to my server, which I can use to sign into TVs when I don’t want to bother with the whole account setup process. Handy for things like parties, because I have a few “just hit play and drunk people will enjoy it” types of playlists ready to go.
Basically, Jellyfin for yourself and your household. Plex for everyone else. Luckily, the two will happily run side-by-side without any issues.
I'm not confident enough in my knowledge to ever open up my server externally, even after reading some methods that are allegedly safe (or relatively safe). I'd just rather not take the risk of me misunderstanding something or failing to keep current with vulnerabilities.
I suppose I see the appeal if Plex handles that without hassle, but man... not for $750. Lol
This is a concern if you just port forward through a router. This isn't a problem if you simply use a reverse proxy, which is standard and normal and expected and not difficult at all.
It’s a concern even with a reverse proxy. The reverse proxy encrypts your connection from A to B, but does nothing to stop the various security concerns that have been noted. Because those concerns don’t rely on intercepting unencrypted traffic. If you can reach Jellyfin’s main log in page, you can exploit it. Full stop.
The only way a reverse proxy would stop someone from being able to exploit it is to include a separate login on your reverse proxy, meaning attackers wouldn’t even be able to hit Jellyfin’s landing page unless they know your proxy’s password. But notably, this breaks basically everything except for browsers. All of your smart TVs, mobile apps, etc would stop functioning, because they’d bounce off of that reverse proxy login page.
I don't proxy the port, I proxy the routes needed for auth and interface. This isn't that hard.
EDIT: ah I see what you're saying, you're talking about the app surface rather than the raw admin API. The risk is small enough with the remaining attack surface that I'm not particularly worried, though obviously I'd like it to be better.
Apparently they are going to DOUBLE that amount every year! Outrageous!
Ha, I came here to make this joke.
Ok, you got dibs on this joke next time plex raises prices
Couldn't pay me to use that software lol
Used Kodi and now using Jellyfin.
I thought the last couple moves were the nail in the coffin, but this might be it 🤣
Unless, like me, you got it for $49.
Still, jellyfin.
Exactly, got mine with an Nvidia shield purchase, still moved to Jellyfin like a year ago and never looked back
Was the conversion easy? Could you keep your watchlist and whatnot?
I have… a lot of data.
Um honestly I didn’t even try to port shit, I’ve only got about 12 TB of stuff anyways so it was easier to just start fresh
Lucky you. I’ve got almost 750Tb the transition might be rough.
750TB!!!??? Good lord, how much did your RAID array(s) cost?
Uhmmm so, yeah. It’s… a significant investment. Let’s say, I look for HDD sales constantly and I’m eating less these days to feed my habit.
For the curious, I run on Synology hardware. Most of the drives are 20-24TB each.
I have their 12 bay sever with two 12 expansions (36 total) and then another 8 bay server with two 5 expansions.
I started with the 8, and when I quickly hit 18 total drives with redundancy… I realized this was going to be a lot more than I had initially planned for.
These are also direct disc rips. No downloads. That’s actual discs in hand, ripping, saving, typing. It’s mostly from my amazing city library, the local video store, borrowing, and then the rest are purchases.
And I’ll answer the next question, dual income no kids… and my partner shares my interest (or at least benefits!). They always know what to get me for a present.
Holy smokes that’s a lot of data
Holy shit! That's downright impressive!
He must've downloaded all of One Piece
Sign up for trakt.tv. It will sync your watched statuses. i am sure that plex supports it, and i know for a fact that jellyfin does.
Option 1: Sync to trakt, then backsync to jellyfin
Option 2: Use something like yamtrack to track it externally
Yamtrack can ingest plex and jellyfin. Just no backsync :/
Thanks for the tip.
I got it for 20 bucks! Good times!
37.5X price hike
Buy low, sell high. Follow me for more financial tips!
Sell pork bellies, buy gold
I think it is. A price hike this massive can only mean they‘re banking on panic buyers who think they can save hundreds of bucks if they buy it now. Meaning Plex probably knows it‘s over and they just want to make as much money as possible before filing bankruptcy or something. At least that‘s what it looks like to me.
My guess was almost this. They obviously want to cash in on the panic-buyers. But I don’t think it’s because they’re going under. I think the goal is to put the lifetime pass out of reach for most people, meaning they’ll default to the subscription instead. Because Plex wants people on subscriptions. They’re more reliable income, which the company can more accurately budget for. There’s a reason everything is moving towards SAAS, and Plex is doing the same. This is simply an attempt to push/lock everyone to the subscription model instead of the single purchase.
I have to agree with this, I think they bet on more people subscribing as a result of their external connection subscription requirement, didn't and are panicing because they don't want to downscale enough to be able to be maintained.
the plex lifetime pass is a solid "stop beating him he's already dead" scenario for me because I lost any interest in it like 4 price ups ago now.
almost a fucking grand for a media server that you host yourself, and only really rely on their login servers for. Can anyone else say "enshittification"?
They provide the apps, metadata servers, and relay service. It's a lifetime pass. IMO that's worth the price it used to be, $70 or whatever. The new price is just absurd, they want you to pay periodically for life because people spend more that way.
Do they provide the metadata services though? Pretty sure that's still handled by imdb and such
Been looking at jelly fin. I have a lifetime with Plex but it feels like they're headed for bankruptcy anyway.
And seems the same. Only problem is that the docker server keeps crashing on my Synology unfortunately
They have a sorta proprietary metadata service that is presumably based on imdb, thetvdb, etc. but they also handle detection and collection of metadata regardless of where the information ultimately comes from. It's nothing that Jellyfin doesn't do though.
I'm sticking with Plex since I have the lifetime pass too, but the writing's on the wall, I'm ready to switch to Jellyfin whenever Plex dies or ruins itself
That’s where I’m at. Ride my <$80 lifetime license till the wheels fall off and see where jellyfin is at that point.
Exactly my sentiment too. I already paid for it, may as well use it until they make some move that makes the jump to Jellyfin worth it. Not to mention Jellyfin is still fresh on the scene and I personally think it still needs a few more years to make a more seamless changeover from Plex for me and everyone else I've granted access to.
Why not Emby?
Because I’m simply not aware of it or all the other options since, as I mentioned, I have no imperative to leave plex at the moment.
Me either (leaving Plex) but it’s beyond frustrating when everyone just yells “Jellyfin” without talking about other alternatives.
Why not move to Emby?
there's a name i haven't heard in a while /lh
Haven't really looked into it. I have Jellyfin set up and ready to switch over already. Maybe I'll check it out when Plex blows up
Fair
The docker implementation on synology is pretty bad. I ran my setup on there for about a year before I got fed up. Ended up picking up a mini-pc and installing unraid on it, which has a much better way to run and manage docker containers. Only downside is having two machines now with the storage pool over the network. A bit more complications rather than direct attached storage.
I run docker with about 10 services on a DS923+ with no issues.
Why was it bad with Docker?
It's still hilarious to me that Plex, a project forked from the XBMC (now Kodi) free open-source app for organizing and playing one's own entirely legally obtained video files, is a big streaming business thing that charges people money.
It's like finding a tree in the forest that gives out infinite free apples, and then setting up an apple-selling table right next to it stocked with apples you obviously got from that tree.
This happens all the time in FOSS
Someone comes in, contributes a bit, then forks, then closes it off once they realize there’s a path to monetization.
Plex is a particularly egregious example: the initial author forked xbmc to make a mac port. This led to a crazy amount of popularity very fast and they saw the path to monetization. They soon after created plex server separate from the client and went to the crazy step of rewriting everything GPL so they could fully close source.
This is legally fine but ethically fucked; they had a derivative app that technically no longer shared code with kodi but there was the fact that design cues, data structures, etc were mostly inherited. Plex wouldn’t exist without kodi. And that’s totally fine, derivative works should be allowed and encouraged. But what’s fucked is that they made serious efforts to close source and give nothing back to the community that they were built from. Code? Nothing. When they got 40 million in VC? nothing.
See also a bunch of players in 3d printing, notably Bambu at the moment. But they’ll keep getting away with it thanks to a combination of governments that are like “money is more important than fairness or progress” and idiotic consumers that are like “oh I have to spend 30 seconds longer figuring something out? Ugh fuck you im gonna buy what some YouTuber was paid $400 to recommend”
No… it’s like picking up those apples, shipping them across the country, and then charging customers a delivery fee. Which is perfectly reasonable because time and fuel cost money.
Plex helps you (and others) stream from your library pretty brainlessly. Sure there are other options, but all of them are more complicated.
This is it. People have always paid for convenience.
Just look at console vs PC gaming.
Steamdeck made Linux gaming mainstream because it's brainless. Backed by proton.
But console has a vice grip on some communities / groups due to a long standing "plug and play" sales pitch. Now they're stuck because "my friends are there."
My brother-in-law is a sysadmin and stuck on Playstation due to his friends. Doesn't even own a gaming PC because "he doesn't have the time to tinker."
Technically, it’s like facilitating the shipping of those apples, but leaving the customer to ship.
Plex server->client streams don’t go through Plex’s servers themselves, but directly from server to clients. P2P. AFAIK the only exception is when something goes wrong and it falls back to a Plex-hosted server as an intermediary, which should be rare.
That’s still a pretty useful service though. Getting P2P reliable and easy isn’t trivial, and is one reason why open source projects haven’t really supplanted it yet.
I've never used any of the features they've added after they allowed me to host my library of ripped optical media ~2013-2014.
I think software subscriptions are a scam, but I don’t mind buying a perpetual license that is only good up to a certain version with additional fees for newer versions. It’s also fair to charge a recurring fee for something that has recurring hosting costs like a VPN, cloud storage, etc.
If they weren’t such dipshits, the “lifetime pass” should have been a perpetual license you can keep using as long as you want, but charge an optional fee for newer versions if you want to upgrade and get more features. They should also have offered a hosted service to make your instance available to others and charge a monthly fee for that. I think people would’ve been fine with all that.
Well I don't like seeing well reasoned, thoughtful comments in my hate thread. We are supposed to be kicking them while they're down! Not pointing out how a small change would ameliorate the issue and fix everything!
Nothing can ameliorate the ineptitude of
Principal SkinnerPlex.I've always thought the licensing for Jetbrains IDEs is a pretty fair way of licensing software. If you stop subscribing you still get access to the last version of the software you paid for but you don't get new versions anymore. And if you stay subscribed you get a loyalty discount after your first and second years. So it provides an incentive to stay subscribed long term but if you do leave you still get access perpetually to the last version you bought
I think thats really fair too. I might adopt that for my startup.
I use a package at work that lets you update within the major version. So you won't get the bells and whistles of the new one, but you'll get security updates and big fixes for 2 years or so. After that, you're using a mature and polished product that you can ride another 10 years if you want.
I think part of the issue with moving from physical media as a form of software distribution is that people ship buggy software all the time. In addition to making more money via subscription, the company can ship updates whenever it wants. This often means that 1.x may have bugs still present in 1.z, but 1.z has features not originally included in 1.x. At a certain point you're maintaining several versions of your product to test bug fixes, since 1.x users still deserve the bugs fixes but technically shouldn't have the 1.z features. Better companies would be able to handle that, but nowadays bug fixes get extremely low priority since they're spending a lot of dev time trying to attract and retain users with shiny new features, so that means active development on older versions for longer. Obviously the subscription revenue is also generally appealing.
My software for work operates this way. You buy a license, it just works. They add new features, and you pay to upgrade. They never add features that break it. It seems like a reasonable model.
This is almost certainly a ploy to get an influx of buyers before the cutoff of July.
They want to round up all the people that they think were considering a lifetime pass, but were holding out.
I guarantee you when July comes they're going to reduce the cost to somewhere less than $750 and much closer to the current price due to "we listen to our customers" when really it was the plan all along.
They're using the Decoy Effect and FOMO.
Or maybe they want monthly/annual/whatever subscribers, not lifetime, and so they're making the lifetime pass prohibitively expensive. I have a lifetime pass I purchased a few years ago but after running Jellyfin alongside Plex for a few months, I don't think I could recommend Plex to anyone who simply wants to host their own media.
Wow... Rough! I get they've "added value" over time, but they've also enshittified it too...
If only Jellyfin were simpler to setup for the masses...
This.
I got in on Plex Pass at $150 so it’s a no-brainer to keep it up for my friends and family who are less tech inclined, but I’m running it concurrently with Jellyfin on my server.
Wait. Jellyfin’s client isn’t any harder to set up than Plex..
It very much is on some TVs. While there are apps in the corresponding store for Roku, WebOS, Android TV, and Xbox, that still leaves out Playstation and Samsung for instance. Samsung has more than 50% marketshare of premium TVs.
While you can install an app by jumping through hoops, it's not an easy one click install which is what average users need. You can install a Jellyfin server by clicking next a bunch of times. You can get your media there by dragging and dropping it into the media folder. You can install the TV app on most TVs just as easily, but for Samsung you need to do all sorts of extra steps.
A quick Google does give step by step instructions on reddit for instance... but it requires users to download a specific version of Tizen Studio with the CLI (which most people are scared of, they need a GUI to use their devices). They need to connect to their TV remotely via that tool. They need to generate and install security certificates. They need to get specific versions of the Tizen Jellyfin app, that aren't managed by the Jellyfin team, from a random Github. Then rename those files to extract them, inject their certificate, rebuild the package, and send it to the TV remotely... all in the CLI.
That is WAYYYYYY too complicated for the average person. Even with the step by step instructions, people skip steps and skim things without even thinking about it. Most people can barely click next a bunch of times to install things without messing it up somehow. Anyone who's ever worked support can tell you that. My parents and probably half my friends would NEVER be able to follow those instructions without messing it up to connect to my server. And that even assumes they have a PC to run the software in the first place, many people no longer have a PC, they just have their phone and maybe a tablet.
On the other hand, Plex has an app in the Tizen store. Emby, which Jellyfin was forked from, also has a Tizen app in the store. Those people can just go and click install and they're done.
Jellyfin has actually been on the Tizen store since February
It's in the list on samsungs website
Next youre gonna offer a solution for accessing a Jellyfin server without installing a whole vpn along with it?
Not so much a solution... But using a wireguard overlay network such as Netbird does make it simpler to connect smart devices to a VPN as you don't need to install a wireguard client on each device
I just raw dog it. Opened up a port. Keep my server updated, and hoping for the best
Your information is outdated.
Ah yes, by... 3 months. After over a decade of no support.
Not in my experience, but I keep my Plex up for my brother. I shifted away personally a year or so ago because I couldn't watch at work anymore (despite self hosting, login still requires a connection to Plex... Which is blocked at work). With Jellyfin, I can just auth against my Authentik server.
But how do you encrypt remote streams? That's the issue with JF, outside the home there's no streaming encryption, so what's to stop you from DMCA notices? For some family, were running a Wireguard VPN through Ubiquiti but nobody else can with ease. At least not that I'm aware of.
Best solution is probably what those commercial pirates do -buy a bunch of cheap android boxes and pre-configure with your choice of client and VPN, then hand those out. Something goes wrong, they bring it back.
That's... Actually not a bad idea 🤔
You all afraid like the feds are monitoring your home network between each other...
Yeah, if that was the cause they would have bigger problems to think about.
Nobody is going to deep inspect your home packets.
There's a big difference between running a piracy home server between you and your friends and downloading torrents where you announce to everybody that you have that particular file.
So you just run a bunch of insecure connections to your home network?
Yes. What's the problem of that? It's just HTTP instead of HTTPS. And it's just movies, not private data that I'm afraida a man-in-the-middle attack could spy on the other end.
I don’t know why you have trouble with this. Everything runs through the same SSL protected connection. Router -> Nginx Proxy Manager w/ TLS -> Jellyfin.
Just use a reverse proxy. Everything goes over https.
The reason Jellyfin is harder to set up is because they don’t run TURN servers. Those cost a lot of money, hence why Plex keeps raising their prices. I wouldn’t be surprised if Plex’ “lifetime” subscriptions didn’t last for much longer.
That being said, Jellyfin is fairly easy to set up. You just have to watch some tutorials.
I'm waiting for plex to announce that lifetime subscriptions don't cover certain features like secure connect, and that those features will require an addon if enabled. The writing is on the wall.
Does that affect me if I already use my own reverse proxy or Cloudflared? I think not.
At that point, if you have your own reverse proxy, just use Jellyfin.
I would... If I didn't have my Plex pass lifetime subscription since 2020, and several friends using it with my Arr and Decypharr setup.
Or Emby.
Emby is on the path of enshittification too. Jellyfin is a free and open-source fork of Emby. It's like its spiritual successor.
“On the path…”
How?
I had zip experience self hosting home lab or with linux. I messed around in ubuntu for a couple weeks then just ran the commands on the jellyfin documentation for setup.
It mostly just worked. Web ui started right up and i loaded my library. So glad i never touched plex.
"Added value": prescribed, trickled-out, tiptoed smidgens of steps forward
"Enshittification": unscripted, greed-backed, frantic, top-speed Thomas Salto tumbles into the corner and off the mat.
Yep, sounds about right. "Progress".
Jellyfin Lifetime Pass continues to be better value.
I heard their quadrupling their lifetime membership.
Oh bugger, I might actually have to start still paying nothing
Jellyfin: free Cloudflared: free
Jellyfin behind Cloudflared is probably the best move ATM.
It's not specifically against TOS, they do provide you some modest protection against infiltration.
combine that with running it from a container with RO access to your media and you have a damn nice home solution.
While Cloudflare tunnels do work, streaming Jellyfin through them is technically against their TOS and they could shut you down for doing so. Instead, I recommend setting up Pangolin with a cheap VPS. Although, it will cost ~$5 a month or so.
You don't have to use a tunnel, for example I use a reverse proxy to a domain I own, and set a cache rule so cloudflare doesn't get mad.
I really need to take a weekend to learn Jellyfin and set it up in my environment.
Duckdns is free too
I have a static IP (didn't particularly want it but my ISP required it for port forwarding for some reason). I'm not currently hosting anything, at least not anything externally accessible, but when I did I had a tiny AWS instance configured as a reverse proxy to a separate reverse proxy VM in my house. It worked for me and if anything I hosted ever got compromised it escaped my notice.
However, I think the advantage of using something like Cloudflare rather than the way I did it (and as it sounds like you might) is threat mitigation. Especially stuff like DDoS protection.
Turns out, lifetime is difficult to budget for
It would be fine if Plex wasn't hooked on VC capital and needed to make the line go up constantly. Most self-hosters like me have zero interest in what they are funding with subscriptions.
I saw this email and it just read as a desperate cash grab for a company that doesnt plan to be around in 3 more years. Pathetic.
To be clear, you still need your own HW and electricity, right?
As if there weren't enough reasons to use jellyfin already.
Yep, definitely heading for bankruptcy.
Wait, ya'll are paying for Plex??
Paid 70€ maybe a decade ago
Best bang for buck so far
I paid... $74.99 for a lifetime plex sub in 2014. Is this the same service?
No it's worse. Old accounts are grandfathered in to downloads when a library is shared with another user. Otherwise the library recipient needs a plex pass too.
Yes, if you bought the lifetime pass years ago, you still have it. This price increase only affects people who don’t already have a lifetime pass.
Afaik, if you didnt have the lifetime pass
That's what their email said. So my understanding is I must have been grandfathered into the pay one time and have it forever thing.
yup
As always, donate to the FOSS alternatives instead.
In the case of Youtube Premium, donate to Ad Blockers instead.
Time to set up Jellyfin instead!
https://gardinerbryant.com/plexs-lifetime-pass-is-basically-dead-heres-how-to-switch-to-jellyfin/
People still use plex?
I do. It works well enough and my grandmother doesn't have to configure Tailscale. Would I buy a lifetime pass today? Hell no. But I got in early, so why not?
Next step will be to turn every lifetime pass into a 20 year pass or smth.
Then I still have 10 years in mine, maybe Jellyfin can manage to catch up to Plex in that time
Yes millions
Yes. I prefer Jellyfin, but I have three friends with media servers and Plex is the only way to easily connect to all of them at the same time.
I wish Jellyfin had a federation feature.
WireGuard. Done.
Good luck installing Wireguard on my mom's LG webOS TV.
Point the tv to a pi acting as a WireGuard proxy. It’s not hard.
Jellyfin has been very slow for me and buggy especially when it comes to UI and if you try anything fancy like the sync play stuff. I tried it again not long ago and it just pales in comparison. Don't get me wrong as a free offering it's fantastic but I paid for a lifetime sub for Plex years ago, this just works.
I have literally none of those issues and I’ve run it on Ryzen desktops and pi’s. It’s fast and light and zippy. There something wrong with your setup.
Yea man sure, apples to apples ran it on the same hardware as Plex, yet Plex doesn't have any issues with playback or slowness.
This does not disprove my point.
Sigh. I still enjoy my Plex pass that I bought for < $100 but this is another sign to bail on them. I don't particularly like them trying to further monetize my collection.
I do like the ease of sharing with friends and it does generally just work. But this is bad.
The rate of change in their eco system certainly does not justify the price they’re charging. Still, an IPO looms and business gotta business, so here we are. Ready for those stock options to tank and the boat to sink.
And they'll likely "forget" you are lifetime as often with them as they did with us early adopters who got it for cheap.
There's a reason I use Jellyfin, now. Well, more than one.
Plex kept trying to charge me again, and every time I looked at it there was more clutter and spam being forced in front of my face by their "partners."
Kodi on device, great interface especially when you are using touch, if I need remote access I swap to Jellyfin. There's even plugins to sync between the two so your stats and history don;t get messed up by using both.
Hmm, perhaps I should sell my lifetime pass. I won't, but I should. (Switched to Jellyfin long ago)
What are you hosting jellyfin on? I find it crashes when scanning on my Synology
I hosted my jellyfin in Synology DS224+, but I need to upgrade the RAM first, 2GB is not enough for jellyfin, I added 16GB so it has 18GB total now
I guess it depends on which synology/ size of media collection. I also host jellyfin on a synology (DS923+), in a moderate-sized media collection (~ 9TB) and it never crashed
I'm currently using a mini PC in my 10" rack, but also ran it on an old server that used to be my desktop.
I have 2 Plex licenses I bought for something like $80 AUD each, but I then went and bought an Emby license and moved 6 months ago. I have tried Emby, Jellyfin and Plex. If anyone if curious on some feedback
Plex has the best interface, it is logical and everything works. That said, the stuttering on some the Apple TV on hdr /4k files for years without being fixed was the breaking point for me
Emby has some quirks in the player where some functionality isn’t logical, the android apps on a 4K Tele look terrible, but the server software itself is fantastic
Jellyfin does what it says on the box, but it is terribly slow to index and is very basic. I use it to host some music, but that is about it
Also, I found the Jellyfin default client(s) to be pretty mediocre. But they have an excellent Jellyfin for Kodi plugin.
Now, Kodi has had 2 decades of development and has just about everything you could ever want from a client (way better than Plex IMO).
Can I use Kodi the same way I use plex? Like can it be my replexment?
I just want to watch content on my home network 99% of the time, and occasionally use it on my phone/tablet/laptop while traveling (if I have good internet)?
I was always under the impression Kodi was something else...
Everything the jellyfin mobile app can do via vpn (or without if you feel brave)
totally, have Jellyfin as well actually but tbh it doesn't always feel super stable, especially if I leave my home network.
Not sure what Kodi is exactly though.
Can't confirm for me.
Rock stable.
Only stutters on bad cellular coverage or my upload at home being insufficient for the requested bitrate.
Might by my build out, definitely have it on a pretty antiquated set up.
Could be.
Or maybe some setting.
When configuring my setup 1 or 2 years ago I had someone point out my older kernel and that I should use the linuxserver opencl mod for the jellyfin container.
After that it worked like a charm.
The free Jellyfin apps are bad on iOS and AppleTV.
What a joke. Plex isnt worth paying for
Just checked: I’ve paid 10% of that 12 years ago. Inflation is really bad ;)
I think I got it on sale for 5% of that.
I use jellyfin now. Plex was too bloaty and restrictive.
Good for you! I’m still finding it useful and doing exactly what I’ve paid for.
Sure, can I bundle it winRAR subscription?
Insane
Died before I could even buy a home to set up my own home network with.
Buy a home? 🥹 If you're in the US, you were born decades too late for that, citizen. 🤌🏼
Plexamp is the reason I'm still using Plex. I'll fully transition to Jellyfin as soon Finamp (or another music app) incorporates robust caching to handle internet deadspots.
Welp, looks like I'm never buying, and therefore using plex
Ho-lee shit.
I remember when they were like $90 and I got mine discounted at $45.
Yeah, i got mine for like 80€ 10 years ago. Really have to wonder what's going on there. Tripling the price can't be expected to increase sales and combined with the last few changes they must be aware of the reputation damage
Jellyfin
Emby.
Wao, I didn't even remember that existed. It wasn't bad, but had many kinks if I remember correctly, but that was about 5 years ago. Have they made any actual improvements, specially in the remote streaming part?
The reason I settled for jellyfin (after running Plex and then Emby) is because it just works, and bugs are ironed out rather quickly.
I never had the chance to try Plex, but how does it compare to Jellyfin? What kind of features does Plex have and Jellyfin does not and vice versa?
Examples of basic features I'm missing in Jellyfin:
given they finally finished their database refactor, maybe they'll finally start adding some of these
(copium)
I use Plex
Collections exist along with ratings.
I think you have to be admin to do that bevause it's part of the library metadata. Shared libraries would have to use playlists or collections which are per user. I don't use Jellyfin so I'm not sure what you're referring to.
Filters work well. Similar to iTunes. The filters aren't listed in alphabetical order for some fucking reason, though.
I think you can filter by movie language? Never done this. I don't think it cares about the languages available in the audio streams.
None on Plex.
There's automatic collections but there isn't a UI element that shows if a movie is missing from a collection or vice/versa.
Thanks. It looks like Plex does have more user friendly features, but still no info about relations. That's a bummer.
It is really important to know the watch order (even if I had to specify it manually). When I think about it, Jellyfin probably fails even for the simplest watch orders like The Lord of the Rings; not to mention Stargate (Movie 1 -> Show -> Movie 2+3).
You can filter by audio and subtitle languages. Most of my movies have more than one language track and it identities them correctly.
Oh neat
Kodi has movie group/collections. I don't remember about Plex, it's been a long time since I used it
You can't make collections in Jellyfin? It's available on my server
Maybe I have missed it somewhere? The UI is pretty confusing.
The access to collections is pretty obvious (in my UI), it's at the top with the movie/shows/etc selection. I think it's a little more complex to start making them, and I believe they're personal instead of shared. It might also not show up until you make at least one.
Im not at home, so I cant show you a screen shot, but I'll try to remember when I am.
Here's what I see regarding collections:
How to get to them:
The context menu that allows you to add them:
This is in web browser, but the mobile app seems to function much the same way. Only difference seems to be that you have to go into the media page to click the three dot menu on mobile. As far as I can tell, this is the default UI for Jellyfin.
Thanks. I did miss that one. I was looking for a "Add to this collection" button inside a selected collection.
However I'm not sure if this collection is visible only to a user that created it, or an admin has to create it and it is visible to everyone?
Once you click "Add to collection" it will give you the option to either add it to an existing collection, or create a new one.
Maybe some apps don't support that? But I don't think Plex app does that either
I have a lifetime pass already but I’ve been souring on the app as they changed direction.
Previously it was the best app for running your own personal streaming service. It lets you share your library with friends and it even had its own group watch feature allowing multiple people to watch the same stream together. It was perfect for remote friends and family, brilliant during Covid…. And they removed it for no obvious reason.
Now the company spends more and more time trying to promote their own ad-laden video streams, they want us to rate movies and presumably sell that data. The company lost its way.
Lifetime Plex was still worth it with those features at $200, not at $750. If I had to do it all over again I’d probably use JellyFin.
$
I did pay 120 or something 8 years ago, I didn’t mind the price at the time but this is not worth it for ppl who don’t don’t have it.
Oh, I'm already on the Lifetime Hard Pass and it's all but free —ad-free, slop-free, greed-free, bullshit-free, etc.
IIRC, the cost is ~$5/mo for upkeep, took me no time at all to set up, and I get to listen to/watch whatever the fuck I want, whenever & wherever I choose.
Fuck Plex. I hope it dies gurgling & terrified. 🥰
It's just a matter of time before they convert the "Lifetime Pass" to a subscription. Absolutely nothing prevents them from following the Adobe playbook and declaring that they'll be dropping support/updates for the "lifetime edition". Future feature updates & security fixes will then be gated behind a $29.99 monthly subscription
"Lifetime" -- a.k.a. until Plex folds
It must be so easy to be a CEO these days. Whether you do a good or bad job, whether the company is thriving or not, the next step is enshittification. And the playbook is always the same: raise prices, layoff workers, make the product or service worse, fuck over your customers. Rinse and repeat...
Hahahaha….yeah.
Fucking lol
sooooo Jellyfin time?
Emby time.
I have not tried emby, is it much/any better than plex or jellyfin?
try it and see.
Someone is getting greedy.
Digging their own grave
I've got Jellyfin running through my Hetzner VPS via Tailscale from a crappy spec 2014 Mac mini, and I'm a fucking idiot.
Fuck Plex.
We need a support group for the whiners.
It's been dirt cheap and you still don't have to do it.
At the end of the day the core of the software is free. They still have to support and develop the clients and services.... Go shit on emby or the other one for how unfriendly they are to deal with.
Garbage take which amounts to bootlicking. To each their own though.
Lmfao bootlicking
One question, lets say that I bought this subscription. What kind of advantages has it, does it cache your media? Or if you have multiple users, you still need to be able to upload media to miltiple users?
It's the same as the regular subscription benefits, just permanent.
Permanent as in as long as its lucrative. Then some investor buys Plex, stoops honoring Lifetine Subscription (aka transforms them) and you are left with nothing.
based on the history of other companies, permanent until they sell the company and buy some island, at which point they'll freeze all updates (feature and security) to Plex and release PlexGO for a fixed monthly fee.
But how about those benefits. Is there caching or no?
No, there isn't.
There are a lot of gated features, the most useful of which is a low quality proxy that transcends CGNAT and Firewalls when you really need to share a video but don't have a real ip.
Gating hardware encoding is a pretty dick maneuver IMO.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/201751006-plex-pass-feature-overview/
It's not permanent, but lifetime. When they go bankrupt, they'll just eliminate those subscribers.
thats more expensive then a AAA game.
Jesus fuck.
Time to learn how to safely expose Jellyfin, I guess.
VPN. There is no safe direct option.
I’ve had my instance open to the internet for about two years with no issues.
So far. That you know of.
I mean, the worst that could happen is they delete everything on the server and I have to spend time restoring from a backup. Not exactly the riskiest thing to do.
I am using a non-privileged user on jellyfin.
Admin stuff needs to be done with a hidden user.
I might should be bothering to do rootless docker at some point...
Well, the worst that could happen is they start hosting CSAM out of your house and then the FBI knocks on your door.
Ok, fair enough. I don’t think that’s likely though.
No. More likely is an automated botnet mining cryptocurrency or running a DDoS. That's usually what happens.
depending what is on it, and your risk factor, theoretically an attacker can check known resource paths to confirm or deny whats on the server. That's my main complaint currently on it is that the jellyfin team is aware of the fact that it doesn't need authentication, but are looking for some miracle solution that won't toss legacy clients out in order to fix, so therefore the issues are just perpetually open.
edit: it looks like some of these issues may be being worked on now that they moved the problemic protocal into a plugin. I hope that that means they will close them in the next few releases!
I'm on your side. I don't really see the difference hosting Jellyfin or Plex to the internet.
If you want max security and headache for jellyfin, set up a VPN like they say, otherwise keep it exposed, It's very unlikely for your server to be targeted and It hasn't been worth the hassle for me.
Edit: well not directly directly, do the minimum and put it behind a reverse proxy that adds HTTPS of course, but thats recommended in the docs so yah
Setup up tailscale and run jellyfin and your services all through it and you're good.
Great; how do I do that on a Roku streamer?
VPN is the safest way for most, but if you do want to expose it to the internet just blacklist all IP’s and whitelist the known few, maybe slap Fail2Ban on it but honestly doesn’t make much of a difference.
Traefik’s DDNS Allowlist plugin works great for such a task.
Best I've done so far is crowdsec + pangolin geoblocking to just my country. I cant install tailscale subnet routers at all my friends to get their TVs to work. Non starter.
never been a plex user, Jellyfin from the start, but if people are buying this for remote watch, tailscale is pretty easy to deploy, or wireguard is on a lot of routers these days
I'm.not walking my in-laws through setting up tailscale to route to me from their TV
Yeah, they clearly should charge for what they provide, dynamic DNS and user experience. It's just about the cost/benefit, which is debatable
Great; how do I deploy it on a Roku streaming box?
Like they said, on the router
No; I’m not replacing hardware at remote locations to make this work. Plex works with everything that’s out there already.
I’ll ask again; how do I load Tailscale on my Roku streamer?
Then keep using Plex. You can't use tailscale on a Roku because Roku doesn't allow it, you have the most locked down, unmodifiable streamer out there. Almost any decent modern router or android based streamer can run tailscale. Even Apple TV with its notoriously closed off ecosystem can do this. If you're attached to Roku for some reason then keep using Plex. When it's time to upgrade hardware look for options that are more open.
That’s a long winded way of saying your wrong and your recommendation is not out of best intents for anyone asking but just blasting your personal preference and user needs be damned.
Or that your users need someone more competent managing their media and hardware
And the software doesn't even work right most of the time anyway. It's easier to set up a file share and run it in VLC.
I dunno what's different between us, but I've found it to be rock solid for over a decade. I host it on a Mac mini.
For me I was trying to host it a few years ago on an Nvidia Shield. Found it kept forgetting media and had other performance problems. Was probably a function of trying to use media from an external drive, and maybe bugs with the Nvidia Shield implementation, android scoped storage issues, etc. I went to Jellyfin on a Pi and have found that mostly bulletproof
If I knew what plex was this might bother me I guess
Literally just a media server you can watch your downloads from or steam your mp3s